Well Crap. Fire-forming Brass, Anyone?

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Sorry to hog your board fellas but this blackpowder rifle thing has me stumped. Brass for this beast just happens to be rarer than hens' teeth. (Thanks for all the recommendations for sources of the odd-ball 45-75 brass, fellas!)

It is looking more and more like I am going to have to make my own brass, either from parent cartridges like the .348 Winchester or the 50-90. I am a reloader but have never dabbled in wildcats, fire formed brass or any of that jazz. Can somebody run through the procedure with me here? Am I going to need anything in addition to the .45-75 RCBS dies I have?

If any of you have ever done this please let me know...I am chewing through some threads on other forums but they are cases of experienced wildcatters coaching other wildcatters. If anyone could spare a newbie a few moments I would appreciate it. This rifle will be shooting cast lead and blackpowder for the most part.

Thanks,

Jim
 
I have fireformed .348 Winchester brass to 11mm Murata. Prime, charge with some fast burning powder, fill balance of case with inert filler, seal case mouth with white glue, fire in rifle.
Experiment. Start low, work up until case is fully formed. I was getting good results with about 14gr of a pistol powder.
Some anneal the upper half of the case first. I didn't; didn't lose any cases to splits.
The report is like any gunshot. Don't do this in an urban backyard.
 
I would start with 348 cases and anneal them. If they will fit in the chamber then load them with some fast burning powder (most shotgun powders probably fit the bill) and put a pinch of drier lint on top of the powder. I would fill the case with corn meal and press a 36 call lead round ball in the neck (think muzzle loading balls) and fire it somewhere safe. You are going to have to start fairly low and work up to figure out a powder charge that will pop the case out to fill the chamber without excessive pressure. Once the shell is formed, you will have to trim the shell to length following fire forming. If the annealed shell will not fit in the chamber, you will need to run it into a full length sizing die with the neck expander removed. and then fireform as above

If you were forming the shells from something larger, like the 50-90, you would need a series of forming dies which bring the shell down in stages because quite often a shell will wrinkle or collapse if you try to squeeze it down too much in one step.

If you have not annealed cases before, be sure not to anneal the head and primer pocket. I sit the shells on a metal block in a bread pan filled with enough water to cover the rim and not much more. The water is deep enough that you can knock the hot shell over into the water and it will be covered completely with water. You heat the case with a propane torch or similar and they need to be close to red hot. If you heat them to red hot, you are not far from melting the brass

cheers mooncoon
 
You said that you already have a quantity of brass that came with the rifle.

Just anneal your cases every 3 or 4 reloads, depending how much they get worked, and they will probably last you.

In the meantime you can do your Google fu and figure out exactly what you need to know about case forming. If you really want a read, look up the hand loaders book of cartridge conversions. Amazon has it.

.348 works for a number of the old cases, save that the rim is sometimes undersized. I once made up 50-70 gov out of them, and while they worked, the extractor on my rolling block was hit or miss on grabbing the rim. Of course nowadays 50-70 is dead common.

I understand that you can use that as the parent case for 45-75 as well, but it will be a bit short. The plus side is its cheaper than 50 Sharps brass
 
Sign up on the CasCity forum. They have a column devoted to the '76 Winchester and it's calibres. All your queries will be addressed.
 
A word of advice about fire-forming 348 Win. to 45-75. I did this years ago and they process mentioned by others worked well. The only glitch was that he final formed case was about 0.10" too short. I had trimmed the initial case to the length of the 45-75, and once it filled out the shoulder the length was too short. The next batch I formed I left the initial case length about 0.20 longer then the normal 45-75 case length. The shoulders filled out nicely then a light trimming brought the finished cases to proper specification.
After the fire-forming , I was shooting the 1876 rifle with black powder loads lighter then the production round. Fired cases would re-chamber in the gun easily, though the neck of the cartridge is what needed more attention. I found a 45 Long Colt die (carbide) would neck size the case perfectly, though I had set the die in the reloading press at the correct depth to ensure the shoulder woudl not be buckled.
That 1876 rifle was another one I should have kept.
 
BrotherRockeye said:
do tell...finding brass other than Starline @ $2/case should be easy then...
Click to expand...

Easier than making vapour and positive thinking condense into brass when there's no Internet Age and nothing at the gun shows besides a few boxes of .348.

You can click a few buttons, sit on your jacksie for a week, and have it at your door: it's common
 
Mark-II said:
Easier than making vapour and positive thinking condense into brass when there's no Internet Age and nothing at the gun shows besides a few boxes of .348.

You can click a few buttons, sit on your jacksie for a week, and have it at your door: it's common
Click to expand...

you might wanna look up the word common...there is a difference between common and easily attainable...

oh and good luck with the fire forming OP
 
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Did you ask Jerry at Mystic Precision? He is a board sponsor and can get some oddball brass. I've had him bring in .45-110 Jamison, .45 Norma Basic, and Starline .38-55 long.

Another, more costly option is to buy it from Buffalo Arms and use Prophet River's importing service to bring in the brass. I believe they charge $50. I'm going to use them to bring in a bunch of .38-50 Remington Hepburn brass next year for my new rifle.

Chris.
 
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